Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Chapter XLI.—Those persons who do not believe in God, but who are disobedient, are angels and sons of the devil, not indeed by nature, but by imitation. Close of this book, and scope of the succeeding one.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter XLI.—Those persons who do not
believe in God, but who are disobedient, are angels and sons of the devil, not
indeed by nature, but by imitation. Close of this book, and scope of the
succeeding one.
1. Inasmuch as the Lord has said
that there are certain angels, [viz. those] of the devil, for whom
eternal fire is prepared; and as, again, He declares with regard to the
tares, “The tares are the children of the wicked one,”4436
it must be affirmed that He has ascribed all
who are of the apostasy to him who is the ringleader of this
transgression. But He made neither angels nor men so by nature. For we do
not find that the devil created anything whatsoever, since indeed he is
himself a creature of God, like the other angels. For God made all
things, as also David says with regard to all things of the kind:
“For He spake the word, and they were made; He commanded, and they
were created.”4437
2. Since, therefore, all things were made by God, and
since the devil has become the cause of apostasy to himself and others,
justly does the Scripture always term those who remain in a state of
apostasy “sons of the devil” and “angels of the wicked
one” (maligni). For [the word] “son,” as one
before me has observed, has a twofold meaning: one [is a son] in the
order of nature, because he was born a son; the other, in that he was
made so, is reputed a son, although there be a difference between being
born so and being made so. For the first is indeed born from the person
referred to; but the second is made so by him, whether as respects his
creation or by the teaching of his doctrine. For when any person has been
taught from the mouth of another, he is termed the son of him who
instructs him, and the latter [is called] his father. According to
nature, then—that is, according to creation, so to speak—
we are all sons of God, because we have all been created by God. But with
respect to obedience
and doctrine we are not all the sons of
God: those only are so who believe in Him and do His will. And those who
do not believe, and do not obey His will, are sons and angels of the
devil, because they do the works of the devil. And that such is the case
He has declared in Isaiah: “I have begotten and brought up
children, but they have rebelled against Me.”4438
And again, where He says that these children are aliens:
“Strange children have lied unto Me.”4439
According to nature, then, they are [His] children, because they
have been so created; but with regard to their works, they are not His
children.
3. For as, among men, those sons who disobey their
fathers, being disinherited, are still their sons in the course of
nature, but by law are disinherited, for they do not become the heirs of
their natural parents; so in the same way is it with God,—those
who do not obey Him being disinherited by Him, have ceased to be His
sons. Wherefore they cannot receive His inheritance: as David says,
“Sinners are alienated from the womb; their anger is after the
likeness of a serpent.”4440
And
therefore did the Lord term those whom He knew to be the offspring of men
“a generation of vipers;”4441
because after the manner of these animals they go about in subtilty, and
injure others. For He said, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees
and of the Sadducees.”4442
Speaking
of Herod, too, He says, “Go ye and tell that fox,”4443
aiming at his wicked cunning and deceit.
Wherefore the prophet David says, “Man, being placed in honour, is
made like unto cattle.”4444
And again
Jeremiah says, “They are become like horses, furious about females;
each one neighed after his neighbour’s wife.”4445
And Isaiah, when preaching in Judea, and
reasoning with Israel, termed them “rulers of Sodom” and
“people of Gomorrah;”4446
intimating
that they were like the Sodomites in wickedness, and that the same
description of sins was rife among them, calling them by the same name,
because of the similarity of their conduct. And inasmuch as they were not
by nature so created by God, but had power also to act rightly, the same
person said to them, giving them good counsel, “Wash ye, make you
clean; take away iniquity from your souls before mine eyes; cease from
your iniquities.”4447
Thus, no doubt, since they
had transgressed and sinned in the same manner, so did they receive the
same reproof as did the Sodomites. But when they should be converted and
come to repentance, and cease from evil, they should have power to become
the sons of God, and to receive the inheritance of immortality which is
given by Him. For this reason, therefore, He has termed
those “angels of the devil,” and “children of the
wicked one,”4448
who give heed to the devil, and do his works.
But these are, at the same time, all created by the one and the same God.
When, however, they believe and are subject to God, and go on and keep
His doctrine, they are the sons of God; but when they have apostatized
and fallen into transgression, they are ascribed to their chief, the
devil—to him who first became the cause of apostasy to himself,
and afterwards to others.
4. Inasmuch as the words of the Lord are numerous,
while they all proclaim one and the same Father, the Creator of this
world, it was incumbent also upon me, for their own sake, to refute by
many [arguments] those who are involved in many errors, if by any means,
when they are confuted by many [proofs], they may be converted to the
truth and saved. But it is necessary to subjoin to this composition, in
what follows, also the doctrine of Paul after the words of the Lord, to
examine the opinion of this man, and expound the apostle, and to explain
whatsoever [passages] have received other interpretations from the
heretics, who have altogether misunderstood what Paul has spoken, and to
point out the folly of their mad opinions; and to demonstrate from that
same Paul, from whose [writings] they press questions upon us, that they
are indeed utterers of falsehood, but that the apostle was a preacher of
the truth, and that he taught all things agreeable to the preaching of
the truth; [to the effect that] it was one God the Father who spake with
Abraham, who gave the law, who sent the prophets beforehand, who in the
last times sent His Son, and conferred salvation upon His own handiwork
—that is, the substance of flesh. Arranging, then, in another
book, the rest of the words of the Lord, which He taught concerning the
Father not by parables, but by expressions taken in their obvious meaning
(sed simpliciter ipsis dictionibus), and the exposition of the
Epistles of the blessed apostle, I shall, with God’s aid, furnish
thee with the complete work of the exposure and refutation of knowledge,
falsely so called; thus practising myself and thee in [these] five books
for presenting opposition to all heretics. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
